


I'd Go the Whole Wide World (Just to Find Him)

by Lily_Padd_23



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Attraction, Baby soy beans, College, Crushes, Cuties, Exasperated Josh, Flirting, Glasses Sam, Josh is ensorcelled, Law School, M/M, Meet-Cute, Model United Nations, Pre-Series, baby gays, mentions of period-typical homophobia, soy beans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-30
Updated: 2019-04-30
Packaged: 2020-02-10 13:50:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18661675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Padd_23/pseuds/Lily_Padd_23
Summary: Josh meets a cute boy.





	I'd Go the Whole Wide World (Just to Find Him)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [supernatural_mondler (1DE3shipper)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/1DE3shipper/gifts).



> So supernatural_mondler (1DE3shipper) has been wanting a meet-cute set at a Model UN conference for like a month now, and I kept forgetting about it. They told me to write it while they were having to take a long drive, so in an effort to get it up for them to see not too long after the got back, this is what happened when I sat down to write it. Just quick and cute and not very well planned.  
> Only done preliminary proof-reading, but I wanted them to have it after they wrote me TWO darling drabbles. So here you go!!!

Josh couldn’t believe he had let himself be talked into this.  He could not fucking believe he’d let himself be talked into this.  One day he was two weeks away from having three months off before his last year of law school with nothing to do but study for the bar and sleep.  And the next day he was hearing himself agree to fill in as director for one of the committees at a Northeastern Regional Undergraduate Model United Nations conference that summer.

When Dr. Morris, his favorite poli-sci professor at Yale, called to ask, the “sure thing, professor,” had popped out and was a complete shock considering he had opened his mouth to say “thanks but no thanks.”  He had only done NRUMUN one semester at Harvard because it’s what all the poli-sci kids who didn’t want to do Moot Court did. He had hated it. He’d spent the whole time listening to these plans and finding himself saying, “what does it matter how we’ll fund it, _we’re not actually going to do it!”_  And slumping back in his chair rolling his eyes every time someone wanted to congratulate the committee on all that they had accomplished that week, grumbling “we debated whether to say required or compelled and then wrote stuff on paper, these aren’t _accomplishments.”_  

But he couldn’t say no to Dr. Morris, who had supported him not just academically, but weirdly personally, too.  It wasn’t so much that he felt he owed his professor favors, just that he didn’t want to let somebody down who had kept a firm hand on his shoulder to keep him steady when he was spiraling into his own head.  So now, it was the middle of July, which was the month he has specifically set aside to do absolutely nothing, and he was on a train to New York inexplicably grading position papers on the topic of expanding access to clean water.  He thought if he read “water is a basic human right” one more time he would throw all the papers the train window. But even worse, he was going to have to oversee overeager, preppy undergrad guys who too smart to get girls. But they were dumb enough to not have picked up the fact they the real reason they weren’t getting girls wasn’t because they were smart but because they were chauvinistic about their intelligence.  Josh didn’t get girls in undergrad, either. But Josh didn’t try to get girls in undergrad, so it’s not like it mattered. He didn’t like that term “get girls,” like they were pizza or something.

That’s what he was thinking about while he was taking a red pen to Mozambique’s position paper explaining that they needed to take the United State’s Clean Water Act and make it universal so the water wouldn’t be polluted in the first place.

“Sophomoric, over-simplistic bullshit,” Josh muttered, while marking up the margins with questions like how will we impose that without overstepping state sovereignty, and how will we allocate clean water equally in the meantime, and how will we ensure that each state is getting the resources they actually need rather than the resources that Western Super Powers _think_ they need, like a kid on the coast of Maputo is gonna have the same plumbing situation someone is Los Angeles.

Not two papers down the pile, did he run across the answers to those questions in the form of Nepal’s position paper that was well-thought-out, and frankly beautifully written.  Every question Josh was about to write in the margins was answered in the next line. He eventually ended up just closing the cap on his pen and just reading it, completely forgetting that it was just an undergraduate’s work.  The paper hooked him right away by turning what he had been thinking on its head saying, “It is not enough to say that water is a basic human right. It is, but that is only part of the situation. Clean water is a basic human right.  Enough water is a basic human right. Indeed, enough clean water it is a right that should be enjoyed by _all_ people, not just those with fortuitous geography and social standing.”  It went on to discuss building on Nepal’s minor successes utilizing NGOs to disseminate water filters and other bottom-up solutions while offering a clear, crisp budget and timeline.  The paper concluded by discussing how the obstacles preventing a child in Detroit were different in many ways from those facing children in place like Nepal, but how they all “stemmed form the same spring” and their solutions warranted unique details, but the same motivation and energy without the racial, socio-economic, Euro-centric, sexist biases preventing finding actual solutions rather than projecting.  

Josh was a little flummoxed, flipping through the staff material to try and figure out who wrote this, but the only information they had was that Nepal was being represented by Princeton’s team.  So he’d have to wait and see.

Coming into committee, he wondered how long it would take before he’d get to see the this incredible mind in action.  He speculated that he’d be one of the quiet guys who sat in the back and didn’t say much but would be the brains of his caucus without the caucus knowing it.  He’d seen those kids operate. The ones who were silent unless they’d formed the perfect counterargument. Who talked to people one-on-one about his ideas until they were all talking together about his ideas.  He’d be the kid who didn’t really want to go up and talk about their resolution, but who would be in front of the big clunky computer furiously making edits. The silent but deadly type of student who everyone underestimated at the beginning but ended up being a little afraid of.  

He was dead wrong.  Right away, the placard for Nepal was the first to shoot up to join the speakers’ list.  Josh watched as the kid in Aviator-framed glasses and a perfectly pressed suit (and were his cufflinks monogrammed?) and the quaffed hair talked passionately about resource allocation, filtration projects, and grassroots solutions coupled with systemic infrastructural changes, citing stats like most guys talk about last night’s game.  The word that kept coming to Josh’s mind watching him was… sparkly? There was something his voice that he seemed genuinely excited and interested in the issue they were discussing, not just in looking smart and showing off or winning awards like most of the students there. The kid just sparkled. And when he turned to conclude his speech, his big blue eyes were sparkling, too.

That’s when he remembered the real reason he hadn’t been able to say no to Dr. Morris.  Because Dr. Morris was the only person who knew. In a heated debate in Civil Liberties Class, Josh had gotten so flustered when they talked about whether the government had an obligation to address the AIDS crisis.  Josh had felt tears pricking his eyes as he had yelled, “Citizens are dying! It is the government's responsibility to protect its citizens. If we have seat belt laws as a response to a public safety crisis, certainly the government can intervene and do something to stop a medical epidemic.”  The guy across from him in the circle had rolled his eyes and said, “It’s not the government’s responsibility to buckle their seat belts when they’re too careless to do it themselves.” And Josh’s face had gone hot red and said, “Are you saying that they deserve to die because you think they’re careless?”  And the guy had just shrugged saying, “I don’t know, but it’s something to think about.” Josh had had to physically grab his own desk to keep from standing up and walking out of the room.

Dr. Morris must have noticed because he told Josh to come back to his office after class, where he’d asked Josh why he was getting so worked up over this.  And Josh had just quietly said, “Because I could be next.” No elaboration. No clarification. The professor had just nodded and gone about his grading. He didn't treat Josh any differently.  They never talked about it again but that professor had become Josh’s anchor in so many ways. That’s why he couldn't let him down.

Josh hadn’t tried to get girls in undergrad.  And there was too much on his plate in law school to go through the ordeal of getting out to what he presumed was the only gay bar in Connecticut far away enough from everything that he didn’t risk having someone who knew his family see him as he was leaving.  

So it had been a while.  It had been middle school the last time he got stomach butterflies at the sight of a cute guy.  High school since he’d felt his palms go clammy at the thought of kissing a cute guy. And college since he’d thought about what it would he’d want to do after the kiss was over.  For a second he felt kind of gross looking at an undergrad that way. But he quickly began to reason with himself that he couldn’t be that much younger. It’s not like he was seventeen.  This conference was made up of juniors and seniors. Five years was the most their age difference could possibly be. Besides, the main reason he couldn’t stop staring at this kid’s lips was because the words he was saying were mesmerizing.  The fact that they were pretty was second.

Josh paid only as much attention in committee as he had to.  After the first session, he let his Assistant Director do most of the chairing because she was actually interested in what was happening.  So he mostly just sat there pretending like he wasn’t reading a book under the table and helping her remember rules of procedure when she got Point of Ordered.  And also, maybe looking at the kid from Princeton a bit more than he should have. Not exactly how he wanted to spend the week, but not as taxing as he anticipated.

Day one ended, and he was packing up the dais when he heard someone clear their throat down on the floor.  He peered over the table and saw the that up close, this kid was even prettier.

“Permission to approach the dais?” the kid asked formally in keeping with committee etiquette.  

“Yeah, session’s over, I’m just a guy now,” Josh shrugged.

“Oh,” he stepped a little closer, and Josh hopped down, "What have you been reading?"

Grimacing that he'd been found out, Josh said, "Just a... baseball... thing."

"Is it good?" the kid asked.

"Yeah," Josh held up the biography, "It's interesting.  If you like baseball." 

"I don't know anything about baseball," he said.  "I'll have to read it sometime."  Josh couldn't hide an amused smile at that and the kid went on, “Well, anyway, in your background guide…”

“You people actually read those things?” Josh twisted his eyebrows.  The background guide was a document he and he AD wrote together on the topic they were assigning that was just that: a guide on the background information on what the UN had done about the topic in the past and why it mattered.  It was about thirty pages long, dense, and pretty much regurgitating statistics. Josh couldn’t fathom having been subjected to writing it, much less having to read it. No one on Josh’s team had read their background guides.

“Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I did,” Princeton said, “And I think your assessment of the impact of the ‘74 World Food Conference in Rome, while comprehensive, is incorrect and frankly, just a little off track.”

“You think...?” Josh blinked, “You read the background guide and found _fault_ with it?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “And I’d like to discuss it with you.  Maybe over dinner?”

Josh chuckled dryly, not sure whether the blush he felt was noticeable.  And less sure if the way this kid was kind of biting his lip while he while he was waiting for Josh’s answer was a nervous tick or a deliberate seduction.  Because it was cute as fuck.

“Well,” Josh said after a second, “I’m not allowed to, like, hang out with delegates during the conference.  It’s staff policy. Professors will say I’m playing favorites. But how about after this whole thing is over I buy you a beer and you can tell me about it.”  

“Sounds good,” he smiled.  And the kid’s smile was almost as sparkly as his eyes, “See you tomorrow then!”

“ ‘Kay,” Josh said.  Princeton nodded and turned to go before Josh said, “I don’t think I caught your name?”

He turned around and flashed another one of those sparkly smiles and said, “Sam.  I’m Sam Seaborn.”

Josh felt a grin light up his own face because there was something that clicked in his head that was a little fuzzy but is was something along the lines of "now _that’s_ a name the whole world’s gonna know.”  Some days, looking at this foreign policy shit made him feel like things were pretty hopeless.  But he had a feeling the world would be okay if people like Sam Seaborn were in it.

“Nice to meet you, Sam Seaborn,” Josh said, “I look forward to you explaining to me why I’m wrong.”

Sam said goodnight and headed out, leaving Josh to finish packing and think about how he would probably let Sam Seaborn explain why he was wrong that the sky was blue just to have an excuse to listen to him talk.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy and let me know if you want a part two where they have said beer! 
> 
> As always these dorks don't belong to me, but it's fun to pretend. 
> 
> The title comes from Wreckless Eric song "Whole Wide World" (but I made it gay).


End file.
